That Was The Year That Was ... And What Will Be

Okay, let's get the obligatory end-of-year thing out of the way ...

Well, so, 2011, eh? Phew. That was a weird one for me. Lots of changes, both personal and professional.

Myself and The Missus moved back up to Edinburgh after seven years. Plenty of things prompted that, not least that my old workplace turned into a wasteland in the wake of a Tory victory, with redundancies, restructuring and recriminations in abundance and we figured that if we were going to be financially shaky, we might as well do it in a city we both love. We got very lucky in our flat-hunting (thanks to Mrs. B and the much-resisted purchase of a mobile phone*), and in my old boss (now no longer with the company), who let me work from home for a month. Thank you once again, Peter G.

Beast of Burden, the last Innes novel, came out in hardback in the US and sent the series out in style, thanks to some lovely work by HMH. It also garnered some nice reviews in print (It was in Entertainment Weekly, for fuck's sake! What are the odds?) and online**, and some really nice ones on Amazon. California also hit the shelves as part of the revamped Crime Express series from Five Leaves, and rubbed shoulders with that filthy delinquent Charlie Willams, whose Graven Image is FREE on Amazon until 3rd January.

I also dipped my toe into the waters of self-publishing, and put out both of my Crime Express novellas, Gun and California, which really wasn't as painful an experience as I'd expected it to be. Sales of both have also been waaaaay better than expected, as has their reception and review coverage. I don't know much I'm likely to self-pub in the future, though - both those novellas were properly edited, and I'm not the kind of bloke who likes to go running around with his flies down, despite what you may have heard.

Lucky for me then that I signed up with Blasted Heath. Yeah, you all know about them. They're pretty fucking amazing, but I have to say, they're really naive in certain respects - they signed up a rewrite for one, and then presented me with contracts for a further five novels. That rewrite was Dead Money, and I'd be lying I didn't say that I was actively dreading its pub date, thinking that people would dismiss it as old rope. But I've been reliably informed that it's doing nicely, thanks for asking, and we'll see how it continues next year. As for Blasted Heath as publishers, they're quick, efficient, use plain English in their contracts and genuinely care about both the quality and success of their books. Which already puts them way above most traditional publishers. We'll see if they pay on time ...

In other writing news, I finished a first draft of the follow-up to Dead Money and (as much as these things can ever be finished) a screenplay adaptation of Allan Guthrie's Savage Night, started this blog up again as well as another one over at Norma Desmond's Monkey, and a few short stories and non-fiction bits and bobs here and there, most notably perhaps in Luca Veste's fantastic charity anthology Off The Record. I also managed to finish off the three-parter Wolf Tickets for those sick bastards at Needle.

So, moderately busy, then.

When I put it all like that, it looks like more than it actually was. Bottom line, mind, is that I didn't really write that much new stuff in 2011. It was a transition year, from Newcastle to Edinburgh, from print to electronic (which is where a majority of my new stuff will come out first), and tying up a series of loose ends that had been bugging me.

2012 is where the real work begins. Lots to be done. There are five novels to be republished (Wolf Tickets and the Innes books) which will require a little tweaking here and there, most likely, but no major rewrites (I hope), and I did want to get at least two other novels finished this year, as well as the shorts I have promised to a variety of venues and perhaps a little more screenwriting work if I can get it. This will no doubt choke me until my birthday on the Diamond Jubilee (35, which I believe means I outlive Charlie Parker - yay, me). Oh, and I'll be blogging on a monthly basis for Crime Factory, as well as trying to keep up appearances over here and at NDM.

Can you spell over-committed? Well, you know, I like to keep busy.

In the meantime, though, I have red wine and a cheeky 12-year-old*** to get down me. So stay safe, you bunch of animals, and try not to get in too much trouble tonight. And remember, if there's ash in your glass, you probably shouldn't drink from it.

* Neither of us particularly wanted what Stephen King once called "the shackles of the 21st Century", but when you're looking for a flat in Edinburgh, you kind of need one. I compromised by buying one of those three quid pre-pay phones drug dealers use.
** Apparently, there was a review in Booklist at some point too. I haven't read it, so I can only assume it was a big, fat pan.
*** Bruichladdich, you dirty-minded bastards.

Aaand I'm out ...

See you in 2012, folks.

This Is England '88

If there's one word that sums up the British Christmas, at least when it comes to television, it's "grim". This is a nation for whom one of the biggest (if not the biggest) and best remembered Christmas moments came when a philandering low-life landlord slapped divorce papers into his alcoholic, inveterate bullshitter wife's hands and said, "'Appy Christmas, Ange"*. Even its most popular sitcoms have the bitter taste of despair about them - Only Fools and Horses, The Royle Family, The Office, Steptoe and Son, Till Death Us Do Part - and so it's only right to warn you up front that This Is England '88 is about as far from glitzy yuletide tomfoolery as it's possible to get. This is 1988, after all. Thatcher has dug in deep at Number Ten, becoming Britain's longest-serving prime minister, Harry Enfield's caricature of the money-grubbing working class nouveau riche is popular for all the wrong reasons, and PM-shagging troll Edwina Currie gives the British egg industry a kick in the balls when she erroneously claims that most of those six-packs are riddled with salmonella.**

And yet, compared to This Is England '86, Shane Meadows' follow-up (and second spin-off from his fantastic movie This Is England) is downright life-affirming. Of course, it's easy to remember '86 as unremittingly grim. Lol's dad (chillingly played by Johnny Harris) was the cause of all that, and the rape and murder that followed was an inevitable, if utterly gruelling watch. At the end of that series, Lol (Vicky McClure) and Woody (Joseph Gilgun) were no longer together, thanks to her fucking his best mate Milky (Andrew Shim), and former racist Combo (Stephen Graham) was back in prison. There were pieces to be picked up, but nobody seemed in much of a state to do anything about it.

Fast forward two and a half years, and time hasn't so much healed wounds as let them scar. Lol is now a single mother, irascible, apparently struck with post-natal depression and unwilling to have much to do with Milky (who happens to be the father of her daughter). Woody has ostensibly settled down with another girl and offered a promotion at the factory, neither of which he's particularly happy about. And Combo, well, he's still very much in the nick. And if this is all beginning to sound a bit like an Eastenders Christmas special, you'd be partly right, if Eastenders featured recognisable human characters, a realistic setting, astounding scripts (by Meadows and Jack Thorne) and assured direction. Indeed, the parallel is drawn nicely by Lol's blank-eyed watching of the show.

Because This Is England '88 isn't really a television drama in the usual sense. It's ironic that out of his filmography to date, the two TIE television series represent Shane Meadows' most cinematic work. And while '86 might be too much for a single sitting, '88 manages to come across less like a miniseries and more as a single, coherent film, not least because of Channel 4's decision to show it across three consecutive nights (the series also takes place over the three-day run up to Christmas). His cast, too, turn in what are essentially film performances. Vicky McClure rightly won the BAFTA for her work in '86 and she deserves the same again for her work in '88, turning in the kind of faultless performance that may not have obvious drama of the previous year, but is no less compelling because of it. Joseph Gilgun too - shamefully overlooked along with Stephen Graham for his work on the original film - deserves a huge amount of attention, not least because in Woody, Gilgun has created (and what sounds like partially ad-libbed) a character of immense charm, and manages the story's (sometimes quite wild, yet truthful) tonal shifts without breaking a sweat. After all, this is a character struggling to remain affable in the face of what he sees are oppressive life choices - his promotion at the factory and steady, nice-but-boring girlfriend represent his gradual change from carefree skinhead to dad. And while this is something that someone like his boss, with his 2-for-1 pub meal vouchers and Ford Scorpio, might see as a step in the right direction, for Woody it's the final stitch in his double-knit straitjacket.

If there's any recurring theme with the This Is England series, right from the film onwards, it's that of growing older and facing your responsibilities. Stripped of the kind of sentimentality that sometimes bogged down Meadows' early work, This Is England '88 and the preceding series instead show us characters that aren't always likeable, don't always make reasonable decisions, don't always react with grace under pressure or in a sympathetic way, but who are eminently human, and who appear to be slowly learning how to struggle through life. In that respect, Meadows and Thorne come across more like an apolitical Loach and Laverty, and as such have delivered a welcome change from the high-concept procedural slurry currently bloating the listings. Weirdly enough, the This Is England series also represent a more thorough look at Britain and the British identity than any "current" drama.

I never thought I'd ever say this, but roll on 1990.


* Watching that clip again, I'm reminded of how many of those characters were either abused or about to be. In the opening minute you have a "pretty and fair" rapist, the family whose father figure embezzled the Christmas club money and then went mental and whose big bruv loves his smack, the old Christian lady whose son is EVIL talking to a woman who'll eventually go nuts after her son's cot death, then there's the punk single mother who'll be forced into prostitution by the big blonde woman you saw at the start. God bless us, everyone!

* This is also the woman who said: "Good Christian people who would not dream of misbehaving will not catch AIDS." She also has a sideline in writing smut. The people we elect, eh? I say "we", of course ...

CALIFORNIA (Knows How To Party)

That's right, kids. My novella California is now available to buy from all Amazons (UK and US) for the lowest possible price that ain't free. Go buy loads of copies for friends and relatives so they never speak to you again. Just to remind why you should, here are three lovely blurbs from people who know about these kinds of things.

"I’d say he’s the most consistently ”realistic” writer in the genre working, his stories the most organic, his characters and their motivations the most recognizable. Banks’ new novella, California, displays these rare qualities proudly and brightly in just under a hundred pages." - Spinetingler Magazine

"Clocking in at fewer than 100 pages, the mighty punch delivered by this dark, quirky novella proves that sometimes the best things really do come in small packages." - The Daily Record*

"There's something about this extremely well written novella by Ray Banks which is reminiscent of a thoroughly reduced sauce. The quantity might be less, but the intensity of the flavour and the effect on the palate is enhanced. Shuggie's efforts to turn round his life make gripping reading, and when you put the book down for the final time you emerge with a sense of relief that it is only fiction: until a glimpse of the news confirms there are plenty of real Shuggies out there..." - Undiscovered Scotland

* My favourite Scottish newspaper, purely because they broke this story and used that photo.

NDM - Face

Gordon Harries says all kinds of things about the Antonia Bird film Face over at NDM.

Clicky.

Dem Peeps, Dem Peeps, Dey All Lub Meh, Lub Meh

Interrupting this broadcast (and flawed Zig and Zag impression) to bring you the latest in Banks-related praise on the Intrawubs.

Undiscovered Scotland says nice things about Gun:

This is not a book to cheer you up on a rainy afternoon: but then its author never intended it to be. Ray Banks' novellas have a remarkable intensity, and "Gun" succeeds admirably in pulling you in, and refusing to let you go until you arrive, feeling just a little grubby for having witnessed the events within it, at the end.

And California*:

There's something about this extremely well written novella by Ray Banks which is reminiscent of a thoroughly reduced sauce. The quantity might be less, but the intensity of the flavour and the effect on the palate is enhanced. Shuggie's efforts to turn round his life make gripping reading, and when you put the book down for the final time you emerge with a sense of relief that it is only fiction: until a glimpse of the news confirms there are plenty of real Shuggies out there ...

Luca Veste names Dead Money as one of his top five of the year at Crime Fiction Lover:

Dead Money is a must read. Another gritty thriller, this novel demonstrates Banks’ sparse and powerful writing, combined with incredible pace.

Helen Fitzgerald says lovely things about Dead Money at her blog:

This was my first Ray Banks experience** and it was like an intensive masterclass in how to write ... People have been telling me to read Ray Banks for a long time. Now I understand why.

Doug Johnstone (he of the rather fantastic Big Issue review a wee while back) puts Dead Money in his Top Ten of 2011 (check out that company - he's obviously got taste):

Best British noir writer at the moment. This is a nasty story about a couple of double glazing salesmen in Manchester who get into all sorts of shit. Funny at times, but also genuinely disturbing, Banks takes you to places you don’t want to go, but you feel compelled to follow him.

Benoit Lelievre says nice things about Dead Money at Dead End Follies:

Dead Money is a great story, it's tight as hell and its so deliberate that it's a complete joy to read. I would call this a guilty pleasure if I could see where I could fit "guilty" in there. I loved Dead Money and I'm not ashamed of it at all. The only shameful thing is that Ray Banks doesn't have all the recognition he deserves.

I think that's the lot. I've probably missed something, but fuck it, I'm only human.

* There's also a lovely review of Allan Guthrie's Killing Mum.
** I'm totally taking the Ray Banks Experience on the road. Caution: first three rows may get wet.***
*** Not like that, you perv.

At The Victory Motel: John Rector

Today marks the UK publication of a fine, fine novel by the name of Already Gone, written by some about-to-be-fucking-huge writer by the name of John Rector. Rector, you may have already heard of. If you haven't, I don't know where you've been, because pretty much everyone I know thinks he's the cat's pyjamas. And the reason they think that? He is the cat's pyjamas. Silk ones. Monogrammed. Dig it.

Already Gone is a book I shouldn't like. I mean, it's a thriller. So it's testament to Rector's talent that he managed to put some human beings in there to keep me interested. And it's funny that he mentions William Goldman and Ira Levin down there, because this one definitely has a lean quality that's sorely missing from today's "thriller" market. In fact, wait, didn't I blurb this one?

Too right:

At a time when most suspense is more filler than thriller, John Rector's third novel drags the genre kicking and screaming back to its roots. Already Gone is a thriller in its purest and most cinematic incarnation - not a word or emotion wasted, it's a taut, nerve-jangling ride that barrels towards an electrifying conclusion, which will leave you shaken, stirred, and above all else eagerly awaiting the next Rector novel.

See what I did there? I rhymed filler with thriller. Takes balls to do that. Hey, you know what else takes balls? Agreeing to do a Q&A with me. Lucky for me, Rector was full of the 'flu. Meant he didn't put up as much of a fight. I like 'em a bit squishy in the sinuses. Makes 'em do what I tell 'em.

Alright, let's start you off easy. You're allowed a complete library of mint-condition first editions by three authors, and you're not allowed to sell 'em on. Whose books do you pick?

That’s a tough one. If I had to pick only three I'd say Charles Bukowski, Ira Levin, and Stephen King.

The Walls Around Us is a hell of a collection, and a fascinating glimpse into what would become some of your preoccupations in the novels. You've said that you see yourself primarily as a novelist, but do you see yourself returning to shorts?

I don't know. I love writing short stories, but I can't see myself dedicating a lot of time to them in the future. Maybe someday I'll sit down and knock out a few. I hope so because they’re a lot of fun to write.

I believe you said that English was a dodgy subject for you, and that you never really thought of being a writer until you sat down to do it. I have to ask - what pushed you from being a reader to being a writer?

It's true. I failed out of English three years in a row in high school. I couldn't diagram a sentence if my life depended on it back then, but at the same time I was an avid reader. It wasn't until I turned thirty and started looking for a creative outlet that I considering giving writing a try. Luckily for me, I'd married a high school English teacher who not only edited those atrocious first drafts, but also gave me a crash course in all the basics that I'd missed when I was in school.

For someone who self-pubbed one of his novels, you strike me as an author who is decidedly uncomfortable with this self-promotion lark - shy, even. Do you have any particular process for marketing, or do you find yourself relying on word-of-mouth?

I think my approach to self-promotion comes from how I respond to it as a reader. I know personally, the more I see a writer out there telling me how great their book is, the less I want to read that book. But if I see other people talking up the book, especially if they don't have a horse in the race, that means something to me, and I'll be much more likely to pick up a copy to see for myself.

If there is a downside to the e-publishing revolution, it's that writers are forced to become blatant self-promoters. Something about that doesn't sit right with me, and I've avoided that side of the process from the beginning. Even with the self-published version of The Grove, all I did to promote the book was a single blog post on a kindle forum, and the rest was all word of mouth.

There are so many wonderful people out there who are willing to push books they love. If there's been any kind of buzz around my work, it's because of them and not any kind of self-promotion on my part.

Your style is kind of - and I mean this as a compliment - an anti-style, in that it's almost invisible and doesn't step in front of the story. Is this your natural writing voice, or is it something you've worked at?

I think it's the way my voice developed over the years, and it has to do a little with my personality and with the writers I was exposed to early. I'm drawn to simplicity in art, so the first writers who truly blew me away were people like Raymond Carver, Hemingway, and Charles Bukowski among others. Seeing what these guys could do with all that white space was an inspiration. They understood that not all readers were lazy, and that they didn’t have to spell out every little detail in fear of losing their audience. That sparked something in my mind very early, and now it's a fundamental way I look at writing.

In my opinion, the writer must be invisible. I never want to be aware of the writer, because that takes me out of the story, and all things should serve the story. 

You've said that your wife was instrumental in making you finish The Cold Kiss, and your novels tend to feature couples quite prominently - Sara and Nate and, more recently, Diane and Jake in Already Gone. Is there something inherently fascinating in male-female relationships under stress?

It's fascinating to me, true, but it's also a great foundation for stories. Not only can you develop characters by letting them play off of each other, but when you bring an emotional attachment into dangerous or stressful situations, you keep your characters from throwing their hands up and saying, "Screw this, I'm out of here." Once they're locked in, you can really tighten the screws on the reader, and that's the goal.  


Already Gone feels like a more mainstream outing than your previous work - was this a conscious decision on your part, or is it a case of "that's the way it turned out"?

A little of both. I'm a big fan of the old pulp writers, but I also love the old thrillers. Books like Marathon Man by William Goldman, or A Kiss Before Dying by Ira Levin are favorites of mine, and when I set out I wanted to try and do something similar. It turned out to be a lot harder than I'd expected, and the book took several turns I didn't see coming.  While I was writing the book, I had a feeling it might appeal to a larger audience, but also I didn't want to stray too far from what I'd been doing with the previous two. I hope I found a pretty good balance.

There's a moment towards the end of Already Gone that makes me think that it's going to be one of those nihilistic conclusions, but you pull back from it a bit. Also, it's quite easy to read the end of The Cold Kiss as optimistic. How dark are you willing to go? And how far is too far?

I'm not sure how far is too far, but I think I'm about to test that threshold with the new book I'm working on now. You mentioned my wife earlier and how she pushed me to go back to work on The Cold Kiss after I’d set it aside. Well, she's my first reader, and I've learned to trust her judgment when it comes to my books. So, when I approached her with the early idea for the new book, I ran through the plot, a few of the twists, and some of the major turning points of the story. She listened intently, and when I finished, she just looked at me and said, "What the fuck is wrong with you?"

Too far or not, I knew then I'd have to write the book.

***

You heard him, he's not going to toot his own trumpet, so it's up to you lot. Get out there, tell everyone you know with eyes about Already Gone. I've done my bit. Now it is time for sleep. Sweet, sweet sleep.